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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23772949">the gap in between</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstrung/pseuds/starstrung'>starstrung</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Compulsion, Elias Takes Care of Peter, Implied Past Necrophilia, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mind Reading, Moorland House, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Canon, Unhealthy Relationships, Yearning, breakfast date</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:41:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,639</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23772949</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstrung/pseuds/starstrung</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter takes Elias to his childhood home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>218</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the gap in between</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Alasdair Stuart may have jossed my fic while I was writing it, but we all have to go on with our lives, right? There are many people to thank for going with me on this one, but big shout-out to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinneys">Alice</a> for immediately knowing what Elias would order for breakfast.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Peter has been standing outside Elias’ door for an hour before Elias turns on his lights and opens it.</p><p>“Oh, it’s you,” Elias says, disgruntled, and it is the first words anyone has spoken to him in many months. Peter takes him in hungrily. Elias is wearing the most elaborate sleepwear a person could wear — dressing robe and slippers and expensive-looking pajamas. His hair, normally combed back severely, now falls into his eyes.</p><p>Peter stands there in silence, still a creature of the empty gray space that sits between the pages of the world.</p><p>Elias studies him, a bemused expression crossing his face for a moment before he sighs, as if put-upon. “Can’t make yourself speak quite yet, can you?” he says. “How many months has it been this time? Nine? Ten? Certainly longer than your usual sojourns. I imagine it will be quite some time before you can manage speech. It really is brutish the way it deadens you so thoroughly.” </p><p>Elias reaches a hand up to touch Peter’s face. It goes very quickly from a caress to Elias digging his nails into Peter’s cheek. Peter is so cold he doesn’t feel it, even though, when Elias draws his hand back with a smirk, there is blood beneath his fingernails. Peter never even flinches.</p><p>Elias tilts his head to the side, and asks, in the voice of something far more ancient and powerful than should be coming out of that body, “Why are you here, Peter?”</p><p>It feels like choking. Peter convulses with the sensation of air being put in his lungs without his consent, of speech being forced out of his throat without him meaning to say anything. He says, in a voice so rough with disuse that he doesn’t even recognize it, “I’m here to repay my debts.”</p><p>Elias smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. It never reaches his eyes, and that’s what Peter loves about him the most. The eyes are the window to the soul, and Elias’ soul is damned beyond salvation. “Then you’d better come in,” he says.</p><p>“May I take your coat?” Elias says over his shoulder, and then laughs to himself at this private joke. Peter follows him like a specter into the hall, not even taking in his surroundings, so thoroughly starved of the sight of another person that he doesn’t look anywhere else. </p><p>He’s been here a few times before. And before that, once to James Wright’s flat. Elias leads him to the drinks cabinet, where he unscrews a crystal decanter full of amber liquid.</p><p>“Drink?” Elias says, and the bastard compels him to answer that one too.</p><p>“No,” Peter growls.</p><p>“Suit yourself,” Elias says, pouring himself an inch and a half. He regards Peter over the rim of the glass. Peter doesn’t know what he looks like right now, only partially in this world, nothing human in him at all. That’s always been Elias’ job — to look.</p><p>“Why did you come here first?” Elias asks him. “No, you don’t even know the answer to that, do you? You just clawed your way out of the Lonely and your feet led you here, to my doorstep.”</p><p>Elias takes a sip of his drink. “You know, I rather think catatonia suits you,” he says. “You’re much more agreeable when you can’t speak. Pity it won’t last forever.”</p><p>Elias smiles. He’s enjoying this. “I did try to warn you, you know,” Elias says. “There’s no underestimating Gertrude. She’s learned the tricks of the game quite well, I have to say, and what’s worse, she’s developed a streak of ruthlessness in her that I wasn’t expecting to find quite so soon. It’s no surprise she took your little real estate endeavor and turned it on its head. Your ritual was doomed from the start, I’m afraid.”</p><p>Peter doesn’t say anything. He’s aware that Elias is being cruel, of course, but if anything, it’s like being a moth drawn to the flame. </p><p>“You took your time getting back,” Elias continues. “You were off sulking in the Lonely for so long I thought I’d have to orchestrate another ritual myself just to summon you. But now that you’re here, I can put you to use. There are some changes I’d like to make at the Institute, and unfortunately your family is still its main financier. I know you don’t like to be involved, but you do owe me after my archivist stopped your ritual. That was the deal, if you’ll remember.”</p><p>Here, Peter makes himself speak of his own accord. “It wasn’t fair.”</p><p>Elias raises an eyebrow. “You knew the terms going in. And, believe me, I didn’t interfere. Gertrude is more than capable of navigating our world of monsters all on her own, and she’s gotten rather good at hiding things from me.” Here, for the first time, Elias looks faintly annoyed. Peter almost smiles to see it.</p><p>He is pretty sure that Elias is telling the truth. Elias rarely lies — the truth is where he draws his power from, after all. The only times Peter has caught Elias in a lie is when Elias is trying to hide his own feelings from him. </p><p>“But we can talk more about it later. I’m going to bed,” Elias says. He finishes his drink and sets the glass down on a table and crooks a finger at Peter.</p><p>Peter goes to him. The numbness is beginning to fade just enough for him to feel the sting at his cheek where Elias left his mark. Elias puts a hand on the back of Peter’s neck and draws him in for a kiss.</p><p>Before Peter can even find it in himself to respond, Elias is already pulling away, his mouth twisting with distaste. “Hm. Like kissing a corpse, and not in an enjoyable way,” he says. “Ah well.”</p><p>Peter follows Elias to his bedroom, stands in the doorway to watch Elias hang up his robe, neatly put away his slippers, and sit on the bed, one leg crossed precisely over the other. </p><p>“Take off your boots, Peter,” Elias tells him.</p><p>Peter sits heavily on the chair by the door and unlaces his boots, tossing them aside. He sees the way Elias’ eyes flick after them, annoyed. He doesn’t say anything about it though.</p><p>“Now come here,” Elias says, and moves back on the bed to accommodate him. “I know you’d prefer to see me in an empty bed, but I think we’ve had quite enough of that for now, don’t you? And don’t even think about leaving me in the morning. You and I have much to discuss, and I’d prefer having you where I can see you to do it.”</p><p>Peter doesn’t say anything. He’s already said all he can say for today. He lies down next to Elias in the bed and stares at the ceiling. He probably won’t be able to sleep. He’s been sleeping for a long time.</p><p>“Good night, Peter,” Elias says, almost sweetly, in the way that venom sometimes is.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In the morning, Elias takes Peter to the café down the street from his flat for breakfast. They must know him there, because they bring him his order almost immediately — an egg white omelette and an espresso.</p><p>“Aren’t you going to ask my friend what he’d like, Phillip?” Elias says to the boy who brings him his food.</p><p>Phillip startles, staring at Peter in shock — it’s clear that he had no idea Peter was sitting there until Elias pointed him out. “I’m sorry, sir, what would you like?”</p><p>Peter doesn’t say anything. He thinks idly of trapping Phillip in a train car, one that never stops at a station, so he can see the world pass him by and never be a part of it again. Phillip begins to shiver uncontrollably, his face turning gray as Peter opens a door to the Lonely at his feet.</p><p>“Peter,” Elias warns sharply, and Peter’s concentration breaks. Phillip takes a deep, shuddering breath as Peter releases him.</p><p>“Are you all right, Phillip?” Elias asks, the picture of well-meaning concern.</p><p>“Yes, I’m fine, I— just a bit cold today, I think,” Phillip says faintly.</p><p>“Well, all right. Peter will just have a black coffee, I think. Off you go,” Elias says, and Phillip escapes with visible relief.</p><p>Elias turns in his seat to narrow his eyes at Peter. “I understand you’d like to <em> feed </em>right now, but I will have to ask that you don’t send any employees of this particular café to the Lonely. It’s very difficult to get a decent espresso in this neighborhood, and I won’t have you ruin that for me.”</p><p>Peter feels himself smile just a little, but makes no reply.</p><p>Elias makes an irritated noise. “This is getting ridiculous. If I knew Gertrude would break you so thoroughly, I’d at least have given you a head start. Let’s see if I can—” </p><p>Elias leans forward across the table and <em> looks </em>into Peter with eyes as cold as scalpels. They cut Peter to his bones and deeper still, and suddenly Peter is reliving his worst memories, those he most covets. Flashes of a neglected childhood, of empty halls and distant faces, of spending entire weeks with only himself for company.</p><p>For a moment, Peter isn’t hollow anymore, and it feels so good that it <em> hurts</em>. He grips the edge of the table hard enough that the cutlery rattles. “Get out of my head, Elias,” Peter grits out.</p><p>“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Elias says, coolly. “Pass the salt.”</p><p>Peter doesn’t move, lets himself have this one small rebellion. Elias, apparently unbothered by this lack of reaction, reaches over to get the salt himself, and begins to eat his food. Peter’s coffee arrives — Phillip puts it down as quickly as he dares, like he’s afraid to linger for too long — and Peter makes himself take a sip. It’s too hot, but he barely tastes it.</p><p>“What will we do with you, Peter?” Elias says as he eats. “You won’t be of any use to me while you’re like this, and I can’t keep pulling threads out of your head. Soon you’ll unravel entirely, and that’ll be the end of that. What a waste.”</p><p>Elias finishes his breakfast. Peter lets his coffee go cold. When the bill comes, Elias slides it over to Peter automatically. Peter pays and they leave.</p><p>Outside, it’s begun to rain. Elias produces a black umbrella, and then hands it to Peter with a look, like he’s daring Peter to dispute it.</p><p>There’s something vaguely unhappy in Elias’ face when Peter takes the umbrella from him without argument and opens it over them both, but he still fits himself next to Peter as they walk. Peter keeps feeling the warmth of Elias at his side like a blow to the head.</p><p>“We need to get your strength back up, that much is clear,” Elias muses. “Perhaps a bracing sea voyage on the <em> Tundra </em>. You and a small, hand-picked crew. You could drop them into the Lonely one by one, really savor it. It’s been done before, of course, but I know you love a classic.”</p><p>Elias looks up at Peter. “What do you think?” he asks.</p><p>“Not the <em> Tundra</em>,” Peter says through his teeth, compelled to answer. </p><p>Elias frowns. “Where, then?”</p><p>Damn Elias fucking Bouchard and the fingers he keeps hooking into Peter’s head. “Moorland House,” Peter answers, after a brief struggle.</p><p>This surprises Elias, which is in itself a treat. He stops walking, so that Peter has to grind to a halt in order to keep them both covered by the umbrella. “Moorland House. Your family home? Why?” Elias says. “Oh, Peter. You’re not feeling nostalgic, are you?”</p><p>Elias doesn’t compel him this time, and Peter doesn’t answer. He’s confident that Elias can work it out himself — he does so much like the sound of his own voice. </p><p>“It is the start of it all, I suppose,” Elias says. “The power of that place has the benefit of generations of Lukases all tied to the Lonely by blood and natural disposition worshipping it under one roof. If there’s any shrine to your god, it’s there. I’ve always been curious to see it myself, as it happens.”</p><p>Peter makes himself say, “You’re not coming with me.”</p><p>“Actually, you’ll find that I am,” Elias says crisply. “I’ll be looking after you, of course. That wasn’t the welcoming invitation I was hoping for, but no matter. We’ve known each other for long enough to do away with things like formalities, haven’t we?”</p><p>Elias takes Peter’s arm, and they begin to walk again.</p><p>“And I do want to see it for myself,” Elias says. “You forget how young this body is, still. I’ve attuned to it, yes, but there are still so many horrors that it hasn’t seen up close. These things are always different through fresh eyes. Well, so to speak. My last body had borne witness to <em> so </em>many nightmares before it finally gave out. I suppose I miss that.”</p><p>Peter can honestly say he prefers this reincarnation of Jonah Magnus to the last, but perhaps that’s only because he’s more familiar with it.</p><p>He never slept with James Wright. He thought about it, of course, went to James’ flat when James wasn’t there and lay in the bed and thought of that frail, old body and what it would feel like beneath his hands. But Peter had other things to occupy himself with at the time, and before he knew it, James was dead and Elias had taken his place. Elias was much younger, of course, his face deceptively open, still a little unguarded in his expressions in those early days. </p><p>Peter has fond memories of helping Elias break in his new body.</p><p>“Stop that,” Elias tells him sharply. Oh, of <em> course </em> the slippery bastard has had an eye on Peter’s thoughts this entire time. Now that he’s looking for them, Peter can feel the telltale signs — the faint pressure at the back of his mind, an invasion that he’s grown accustomed to during his meetings with Elias, but an invasion nonetheless. </p><p>Fine, then. Peter retaliates by conjuring up a fantasy he’s had of the two of them before, one where he dips them both into the Lonely in the middle of a busy street, so that no one would see him drop to his knees in front of Elias. They’d be surrounded by people, and yet completely alone, just the way Peter likes. </p><p>Elias hisses out a breath. “You brute,” he says, annoyed. “As if I’d let you send me to the Lonely for something as trivial as that. And I don’t think <em> you </em>should go back there anytime soon either, not until you’ve recovered. Stay there any longer and you’ll just be a wandering wisp. A ghost.”</p><p>Peter doesn’t think that’s all that bad, to be a ghost. It all depends on who he gets to haunt.</p><p><br/>
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</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Peter is, at his most base, a creature of solitude. </p><p>His many years falling in and out of Elias Bouchard’s bed have been beneficial to them both — Elias gets something endlessly insatiable to feed himself on, and Peter gets to be with someone who knows to watch from a distance. In many ways, they have been perfectly designed to either battle each other for all eternity, or entwine themselves so thoroughly that they’d be reduced to living as each other’s shadows.</p><p>Somehow they’ve found middle ground. It’s always been a dance on the edge of the knife for the two of them, but Peter enjoys the thrill of not knowing who will get cut this time, and who will win.</p><p>Taking Elias Bouchard to his childhood home is emphatically <em> not </em> a win for Peter. In fact, he’s pretty sure Elias will be absolutely <em> insufferable </em> about it for years to come.</p><p>“It looks truly miserable,” Elias says dryly, once he sees it.</p><p>“Doesn’t it just,” Peter says, warm all over with homesickness — that particular kind of homesickness you get when you return to the place you grew up in only to find it changed in small immeasurable ways. It’s a powerful, heady kind of loneliness. Just from standing at the threshold of Moorland House, Peter already feels stronger.</p><p>“Oh, hello,” Elias says. “Speaking again, are you?”</p><p>“Don’t get used to it,” Peter says, and steps into the front hall. Moorland House is imposing, but it will never be grand. Its ceilings are too high and shadowy, its rooms are too unfriendly to encourage conversation or gatherings, and the whole place is so steeped in cold and loneliness that you very quickly feel like you’ll never be warm again. </p><p>He’s missed it.</p><p>“You’ll be able to amuse yourself, I take it?” Peter asks Elias, because he’s pretty sure Elias came here mostly to be nosy and get into things he shouldn’t. Meanwhile, Peter is impatient for the cold, quiet dark of the house’s hidden corners. He needs desperately to be alone.</p><p>Elias waves a careless hand. “Yes, fine, go on. I’ll explore on my own. I don’t want to impose, or anything.”</p><p>“Funny, since you did invite yourself,” Peter points out.</p><p>“Well, <em> you </em> certainly weren’t going to do it,” Elias says primly, and turns to leave. Peter stops him by taking Elias’ hand, raising it to his lips, and pressing a kiss to his knuckles, right where the ring used to be.</p><p>It’s next to impossible to catch Elias off guard, but it can be done. Elias’ expression doesn’t give anything away, but when Peter lets go of his hand, Elias lets it hang in the air for just a moment longer than he should before returning it to his side.</p><p>A beat of silence in which Elias regards him warily and Peter does a bad job of hiding a smile. “Was that all?” Elias says, sounding gloriously miffed.</p><p>“It was an invitation,” Peter tells him. “You wanted one, so I gave it to you. You’re officially invited now.”</p><p>Elias raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Is that how you invite all your guests?”</p><p>Peter steps close to Elias and lets his voice go low and rough, lets it ache with all the longing he hasn’t been able to feel in months. “You’re my only guest, Elias,” he says into Elias’ ear, and just as Elias begins to tip his head up to receive the kiss he thinks is coming, Peter turns on his heel and walks away, lets Moorland House swallow him up.</p><p>He feels Elias’ eyes burning at his back as he leaves.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Peter spends the rest of the day and the next completely alone. </p><p>Other than a housekeeper and a caretaker — two people who Peter is delighted to say he does not remember the names of — who maintain the house and the grounds, no one lives here anymore. They’ve all been driven away from it one way or another. Of course, every Lukas returns to Moorland House eventually, to be buried in the family plot. </p><p>He walks the entire length of the house, and the fields outside. Moorland House is set upon a desolate field, and nothing lies there that invites the eye. Peter fondly remembers all the times he would spend standing with his back turned to the house, and imagine himself the only living person in a wide and empty world.</p><p>He doesn’t run into Elias, which he should probably be more concerned about, even though he’s grateful that Elias is giving him his space, at least while it suits him to. Eventually, however, Peter’s thoughts do turn to the lovely note of abandonment that he felt from Elias when Peter left him hanging that first day.</p><p>It would seem that Peter’s appetite is back.</p><p>It’s easy enough for Peter to find signs of Elias’ presence once he goes looking for him — Elias has taken up residence in, of all places, Peter’s old room. Peter has no idea how Elias found out that it used to be <em> his </em>room, but it is such a shock to find it occupied that, for a minute, Peter is unable to do anything but stand in the doorway and stare. </p><p>Elias isn’t there, but Peter can see his partially unpacked bag set by the window, his clothes hanging in the closet, his extensive array of toiletries lined up by the sink. To see the sanctified loneliness of this room erased in such deliberate strokes gives him a strange unknowable feeling, and that’s when Peter turns away to go find Elias. Elias always knows what to do with Peter’s unknowable feelings, even if it’s just to pluck them out of Peter’s head and put them between his teeth.</p><p>He finds Elias in the portrait hall.</p><p>Peter takes a moment to admire the picture Elias makes as a solitary figure in a hall of the dead. He’s always dressed infuriatingly smart, his Elias, but there’s something about the cut of his suit today that’s particularly appealing, or perhaps it’s just because it’s been so long since Peter’s touched him that he can barely think of anything else.</p><p>“It’s rude to stare, you know,” Elias says, his back still facing Peter. There’s that little bite to his words that tells Peter that Elias still hasn’t forgiven him for how he left things last.</p><p>“A bit hypocritical coming from you, don’t you think?” Peter says, emerging from the shadows and walking to Elias’ side. </p><p>Elias is standing in front of a portrait of Mordechai Lukas. Peter always avoided this portrait in particular. Everyone always told him growing up how much he resembled his ancestor. He’d despised it — this connection to another person that he could never really rid himself of.</p><p>“It’s true, what they said,” Elias says, intruding on Peter’s thoughts again. “You do remind me of Mordechai a lot. He and I got along quite well.”</p><p>“Did you sleep with him too?” Peter asks.</p><p>“No. Would it bother you if I had?” Elias says, a certain smugness to it, like he thinks he’s caught Peter in a trap.</p><p>Peter thinks about it. “Yes,” he says.</p><p>Elias doesn’t reply. It always manages to throw him off when Peter is honest with him, when he bares his truths without a fight. It’s not that Peter even does it <em> to </em>throw Elias off. There are just some things Peter knows there’s no use in hiding — at this point, all of his secrets belong to Elias by right.</p><p>“And?” Elias says, after a moment of silence. “How are we feeling today?” </p><p>“Good,” Peter says, and finds as he’s saying it that he means it. He feels less like negative space, as if the empty howling vacuum at his center has been soothed, well-fed. </p><p>Elias studies him for a moment, and then nods. “Yes, you do look rather less pitiful now. I was beginning to worry, but it seems you’ve pulled through. Gertrude will be <em> so </em>disappointed.”</p><p>“You missed me while I was away,” Peter says. “Didn’t you?”</p><p>“Hardly,” Elias says, avoiding Peter’s gaze. “It’s only been a day and a half, and it’s not like I didn’t have things to do here. The house is just as fascinating as I thought it would be, even if I had to give myself the grand tour.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m sorry, darling,” Peter says, taking Elias’ chin in his hand so that Elias is forced to look at him. “Were you feeling neglected?”</p><p>Elias glares at him and twists out of Peter’s grip. “Not at all,” Elias says, even though Peter can <em> taste </em>how much of a lie that is.</p><p>“I wasn’t referring to the last day and a half, Elias,” Peter says, enjoying this. “As you very well know.”</p><p>“Yes, fine,” Elias says, letting out an annoyed breath. “I suppose I didn’t expect you to be gone for so long. You and I made a deal that you would lend me your services if your ritual failed. I had expectations, and they weren’t met.”</p><p>Peter can tell that Elias is avoiding giving him a straight answer, but he can’t resist rising to the bait. “I was <em> gone </em> for so long, because I felt betrayed,” Peter says. “It was <em> your </em>archivist who stopped my ritual.”</p><p>Elias’ eyes glitter, all that wicked cunning turning his face harsh and cruel and beautiful all at once. “Then perhaps you should have thought more carefully about the terms of our agreement.”</p><p>Peter sighs. “You’re trying to distract me.”</p><p>Elias goes very still. “Am I?” he says.</p><p>“You forget, I can feel how much you missed me,” Peter says, stepping closer. “I couldn’t feel it before when I first found my way back to you, but I can now. Admit it, Elias, you were <em> longing </em>for me during these last months, weren’t you? There was something not quite right while I was gone, even if you never named it to yourself. You were lonely.”</p><p>Peter puts a hand to Elias’s cheek, runs his thumb gentle across Elias’ cheekbone, just below his eye. Elias just looks at him with a cold expression, and doesn’t say anything — between the two of them, Peter’s not the one who can force him to confess, after all. But they both know that Elias’ silence is answer enough.</p><p>This time, Peter doesn’t leave Elias. He bends his head and kisses him on the mouth hungrily, something in him singing when Elias opens his mouth to meet him. Peter pushes him to the wall, or perhaps Elias is the one who pulls him. Either way it ends with Peter pinning Elias there, the portraits hanging above them creaking and shifting upon the impact. Peter doesn’t care — he keeps kissing Elias with an aching sweetness, a profound and wonderful yearning opening deep in his chest.</p><p>“Right in front of your ancestors,” Elias says, and the breathlessness in his voice goes <em> right </em>to Peter’s dick. “This is a level of perversion I wouldn’t expect even from you.”</p><p>Peter rocks a thigh between Elias’ legs and sucks hard at Elias’ neck and Elias makes a small, stifled noise. “You do love provoking me, don’t you?” Peter says.</p><p>“Always,” Elias says, and the raw emotion in that word startles them both. Elias solves this by pulling Peter back into a kiss, which Peter thinks is a cheap move, even for him.</p><p>“Take me to bed,” Elias says, his lips brushing against Peter’s ear. Peter leans back a little, just so he can take in the sight of Elias right now. The collar of his shirt unbuttoned to his collarbone, his pale neck bruising beautifully, the scowl on his face as he realizes what Peter is doing.</p><p>“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Elias snaps at him.</p><p>“If you think I should,” Peter says, innocently.</p><p>Elias gives an aggrieved sigh and pushes Peter away. “Fine. I can take myself.”</p><p>“Dirty,” Peter says, just to see Elias narrow his eyes. </p><p>They go to Elias’ room, which used to be Peter’s room, until Elias decided to intrude, as he likes to do.</p><p>“I’m wondering,” Peter says, watching as Elias takes off his jacket and hangs it in the closet. “Did you pick this room because you wanted to use it against me, or did you pick this room because you were feeling sentimental?”</p><p>“Can’t it be both?” Elias says, with a sharp smile. He beckons for Peter to come closer, and Peter unbuttons the rest of Elias’s shirt, lifting it up out of his belt and pushing it out of the way so that he can kiss Elias’ shoulder. </p><p>“I had such a lovely chat with your housekeeper,” Elias says. “She was here when you were growing up, and I was curious — ah — what you were like as a child. And do you know what? She barely even remembered you. She used to be your nanny, did you know? And yet all she could tell me was how there was barely anything of you there, something so oddly <em> empty </em> about you.”</p><p>“That must have been frustrating for you,” Peter says, kissing down Elias’ chest.</p><p>“She told me this was your room, so I decided to see it for myself,” Elias says. “They left you in here quite a lot, didn’t they? Your mother never wanted to see you, so this was where she kept you. There’s so much misery in the walls of this place, Peter.”</p><p>Elias says it with such <em> heat</em>, like even now he’s still glutting himself with the nightmares Peter once had in this room, so that Peter has to take a ragged breath and lean his head into the crook of Elias’ shoulder. What an intimate thing, to be known.</p><p>“You had your fill of it, did you?” Peter says softly.</p><p>“Mm, yes,” Elias says. He puts a hand on the back of Peter’s head, his fingers carding through Peter’s hair. “They were stale fears, but… well, they were yours.” </p><p><br/>
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</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Peter doesn’t ever feel so <em> centered </em> in his body as he does when he’s laying between Elias’ legs. It all feels so inevitable. Here they are again — two old men with their claws set so deep into each other that they’d lose their balance otherwise.</p><p>“Are you <em> ever </em>going to get on with it?” Elias says, his voice almost perfectly steady, which is impressive, since Peter’s mouth is currently on his dick, and has been for quite some time now.</p><p>“Aren’t <em> you </em> going to let me take my time?” Peter says, mouthing over Elias’ balls.</p><p>“Some of us aren’t quite as adept at denying themselves,” Elias says tightly.</p><p>“You absolute hedonist,” Peter says warmly, kissing Elias’ hip.</p><p>Elias raises himself up on his elbows to give Peter a look. “Yes, that’s rather the point, isn’t it?” he says.</p><p>“Did you think of me while I was gone?” Peter says sweetly, turning his attention back to Elias’ dick.</p><p>“I thought we went over this already,” Elias says.</p><p>“I meant,” Peter pauses to run his tongue over the wet gathering at the slit of Elias’ cock. Elias’ fingers knot even tighter into Peter’s hair. “Did you think of this? My mouth on you, my fingers opening you up, my—”</p><p>“Yes, I think I get the idea,” Elias says. “You know this body is still irritatingly <em> human</em>, right? There are some things even I can’t master.”</p><p>“Well, I’m certainly a fan,” Peter says. He lifts himself up and reaches to the bedside table, knowing what he will find there. He’s not disappointed — he finds the bottle of lube, the same upscale brand that Elias has always bought.</p><p>Peter warms it in his hands first — Elias is always particular about that — and slides in the first finger, crooking it at just the right angle to make Elias sigh and go utterly boneless under his hands. It’s been a long time, but apparently not long enough for Peter to forget how to do <em> that</em>. </p><p>He takes his time, learning Elias’ body again. It looks much the same — perhaps a little softer around the middle, the perils of a desk job, and Peter makes sure to go over every inch of him with his mouth.</p><p>“You never answered my question, you know,” Peter says. He puts in a third finger, enjoying the way Elias’ fingers are twisting in the sheets.</p><p>“I’m not here to answer your questions,” Elias says. “If anything, it should be the other way around.”</p><p>“What questions would you have left to ask me, anyway?” Peter says. “You’re not going to bring my mother up again, are you? Because <em> that’s </em> a level of perversion I <em> would </em>expect from you, Elias.”</p><p>“Oh, you—” Elias begins, and then he arches his back, his mouth working furiously, because Peter chooses that moment to start pushing in.</p><p>“Yes, darling?” Peter says.</p><p>“Never mind,” Elias all but snarls.</p><p>“Well, all right then,” Peter says agreeably, and moves the rest of the way in so that he’s completely inside Elias. He braces himself up over Elias on the bed and they begin to move with each other, caught again in each other’s traps.</p><p>Elias comes with a groan, louder than what Peter can usually get out of him, which Peter feels <em> very </em> good about. Peter stops moving to kiss at Elias’ ear.</p><p>“Are you going to let me finish in you, Elias?” Peter asks.</p><p>“Give me a moment, you brute,” Elias says, still panting a little.</p><p>“All right,” Peter says. He waits.</p><p>After a while, Elias opens his eyes, and they’re just as piercing and hungry as when he’s in the middle of turning over all of Peter’s secrets for his own amusement. “Go on,” he tells Peter.</p><p>Peter begins to move again, transfixed by those eyes, unable to look away from them as they greedily watch him, watch his face, right up until the moment when Peter goes over the edge, his vision turning white.</p><p><br/>
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</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Elias makes Peter wash up first, so that he can take his time in the bathroom. When he emerges, flushed from his bath, he goes back to the bed and slides into Peter’s arms. Peter arranges them so that Elias’ head rests comfortably on his shoulder. </p><p>Peter finds that his eyes are slipping shut — he hasn’t felt the need to sleep in a very long time, and the novelty of it is intriguing, he supposes.</p><p>He’s almost fully asleep when Elias asks, “Shall we get married again, Peter?”</p><p>Peter opens his eyes. “Oh.”</p><p>Peter feels rather than sees Elias roll his eyes. “Is that your answer?”</p><p>“No, I — yes,” Peter says. “Yes, let’s get married again. If you’re sure.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t sure,” Elias says. “I’ll get the paperwork started in the morning, shall I?”</p><p>“That sounds good,” Peter says, his thoughts still running too slow for him to understand what just happened. </p><p>All he knows is that he will miss this moment when it’s gone.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Find me on <a href="https://twitter.com/star_strung">Twitter</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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